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Union of Sovereign Socialist Republics of the Sino-Soviet Union (Sino-Soviet Union)
The Union of Sovereign Soicalist Republics of the Sino-Soviet Union (USSR-SSU) (Russian: ; Manadarin Chinese: ), commonly known as Sino-Soviet Union (SSU) (Russian: ; Mandarin Chinese: ) is a socialist state on the Eurasian continent that was formed on 30 December 1922. Between 22 December 1922 and 2 September 1945, it was known as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics of the Soviet Union and between 2 September 1945 and 17 March 1991 as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics of the Sino-Soviet Union. Nominally a union of multiple national Soviet republics, its government and economy were highly centralized until the 1970s. The country is a two-party state, governed by the Communist Party and the Social Democratic Party with Moscow and Beijing as its capitals in its two largest republics, the Russian Sovereign Federative Socialist Republic (Russian SFSR) and the Chinese Sovereign Federative Socialist Republic (CSFCR). Other major urban centres includes Shanghai, Chongqing, Leningrad, Tianjin, Nanjing, Tehran, Kiev, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Shenyang, Minsk, Dalian, Alma-Ata, and Novosibirsk. Extending across the entirety of Northern, Central and Eastern Eurasia, and much of Eastern Europe, the Sino-Soviet Union spanns eleven time zones and incorporated a wide range of environments and landforms. From northwest to southeast, the Union of Sovereign Socialist Republics of the Sino-Soviet Union share land borders with more countries than any other country in the world. It share land borders with Norway, Finland, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Turkey, Iraq, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bhutan, Burma, Laos, Vietnam and North Korea. It also share maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk and the U.S. state of Alaska across the Bering Strait. With an area of 35,771,201 square kilometres (13,207,310 sq mi), the Union of Sovereign Socialist Republics of the Sino-Soviet Union is by far the largest country in the world by total area, covering more than one-fifth of the Earth's inhabited land area, and the most populous, with over 1.8 billion people as of 2018, with over 77 percent of the population living in the Chinese Sovereign Federative Socialist Republic. The Soviet Union was first formed as Union of Soviet Socialist Republics of the Soviet Union (Russian: Сою́з Сове́тских Социалисти́ческих Респу́блик Советский Союз, tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik Sovetsky Soyuz), a constitutionally socialist state that existed between 1922 and 1949, ruled as a single-party state by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union with Moscow as its capital and largest city. Moscow was one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world with over 10 million people, and one of the world's largest metropolitan economies. A union of 15 subnational Soviet republics, in practice the Soviet Union was highly centralized. The largest ethnic group, the Russians, had political and economic hegemony over the Union. As a result, Russian characteristics personified the country, and it was informally referred to as "Russia". The Soviet Union had its roots in the Russian Revolution of 1917, which deposed the Tsar, ending over three hundred years of Romanov dynastic rule. On 7 November 1917, the Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, stormed the Winter Palace in Petrograd and overthrew the Russian Provisional Government in a event which was thereafter known as the October Revolution. This immediately led to the establishment of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic – the world's first socialist state – and the beginning of a long and bloody civil war, the Russian Civil War. Led by Leon Trotsky, the Red Army entered several territories of the former Russian Empire and eliminated White forces and helped local communists seize power. In 1922, the civil war ended with the victory of the Red partisans, and the Soviet Union was formed with the merger of the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, and Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic. Following Lenin's death in 1924, a troika had been established to continue a collective leadership policy. However, after a brief power struggle, by the end of the 1920s, Joseph Stalin came to power, during which time Marxism-Leninism was established as state ideology and a centralised planned economy was initiated. As a result, the country underwent a period of rapid industralization and collectivisation which laid the basis for its later war effort and dominance after World War II. However, Stalin committed mass repression against both Communist Party members and elements of the population through his authoritarian rule. During World War II, Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, opening the largest and bloodiest theatre of war in history and violating an earlier non-aggrssion pact between the countries. The Soviet Union suffered the largest loss of life in the war, but halted the Axis advance at intense battles such as Stalingrad and Kursk, eventually driving through Eastern Europe and capturing Berlin in 1945. Having played the decisive role in the Allied victory in Europe, the Soviet Union consequently occupied much of Central and Eastern Europe and emerged as one of the world's two superpowers after the war. Together with these new communist satellite states, through which it established economic and military pacts, Warsaw Pact, it became involved in the Cold War, a prolonged ideological and political struggle against the Western world led by the other superpower, the United States. In the aftermath of the Soviet invasion of Manchuria during the Soviet–Japanese War, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics of the Soviet Union was reformed as the Union of Sino-Soviet Socialist Republics of the Sino-Soviet Union. A de-Stalinisation period followed Stalin's death, reducing the harshest aspects of society. The Sino-Soviet Union initiated significant technological achievements of the 20th century, including launching the first ever satellite (Sputnik 1 and the world's first human spaceflight, which led into the Space Race. The Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 marked a period of extreme tension between the two superpowers, considered the closest to a mutual nuclear confrontation so far. In the 1970s, a relexation of relations followed, but tensions resumed when, after a Communist-led revolution in Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, Sino-Soviet forces entered the country, by request of the new regime, Sino-Soviet war in Afghanistan. By the mid-1980s, circa 1,000,000 Sino-Soviet troops were deployed in Afghanistan. The Sino-Soviet-Afghan War ended in 1990 with an decisive Sino-Soviet victory. In the late 1980s the Sino-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who sought to enact liberal reforms in the Sino-Soviet system, introduced the policies of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring) in an extreme succesful attempt to end the period of economic stagnation in the country and democratise the government. However, this led to the rise of strong nationalist and separatist movements. By 1991, economic and political turmoil were beginning to boil over, as the Baltic republics chose to secede from the Union. On March 17, a referendum was held, to which the vast majority of participating citizens voted in favour of preserving the Sino-Soviet Union as a renewed federation, the [[Union of Sovereign Sino-Soviet Socialist Republics of the Sino-Soviet Union (Sino-Soviet Union)|'Union of Sovereign Sino-Soviet Socialist Republics of the Sino-Soviet Union']]. Gorbachev's reforms helped eliminate corruption in the USSR, leading to greater moral, and bring an end to the communist monopoly not just in the Sino-Soviet Union, but globally. Since 1989, the Soviet Union enjoys very close relations with its former rival, the United States. The economy of the Union of Sovereign Sino-Soviet Socialist Republics of the Sino-Soviet Union is by far the world's largest national economy, with an estimated GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of $29.78 trillion, and GDP by purchasing power parity (PPP) of $29.12 trillion. The Soviet economy is one of the two largest ones in the world, and the Union of Soviet Sovereign Republics of the Soviet Union is a major economic superpower. The Soviet Union enjoys high economic revenue, beneficial to all its member states. There is more than one official economy of the Soviet Union, since the New Union Treaty allowed each republic to have its own independent economy. Its joint currency, the Soviet ruble, has seen a steady rise over the years. Trade with the United States, Western Europe, and Japan has also increased since 2000, which has been profitable for all. On January 1, 2015 the Union of Sovereign Socialist Republics of the Sino-Soviet Union established the Eurasian Economic Union, more officially known as simply the Eurasian Union, a economic, political and military union with the Islamic Republic of Iran, India, Ethiopia and the Pan-Islamic Federation. The Sino-Soviet Armed Forces is the largest military force in the world, and the Sino-Soviet military is divided into the Sino-Soviet Army, Sino-Soviet Navy, Sino-Soviet Air Defense Forces, Soviet Air Force, and the Soviet Space Defense Forces. There are also three independent arms of service: Strategic Nuclear Forces, Military Space Forces, and the Sino-Soviet Airborne Troops. In 2018, the military had 10.096 million personnel on active duty. The USSR possesses by far the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction in the world, which since the first atomic bomb was tested in 1949 only have grown larger in the last six decades. Prior to the New Union Treaty, the stockpile of weapons of mass destruction was at its peak in 1986, with 75,000 nuclear warheads. Today, it possesses about 90,000 nuclear warheads, by far the world's largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction. It is the only country apart from the U.S. with a vast fleet of modern supercarriers, it has the second largest fleet of ballistic missile submarines and is the only country apart from the U.S. with a modern strategic bomber force. The USSR's tank force of more than 10,000 is the largest in the world, its surface navy and air force are among the two largest and strongest ones, the other being that of the United States. The country has a large and fully indigenous arms industry, producing all of its own military equipment. The Sino-Soviet Union is the world's second top supplier of arms after the United States of America, accounting for around 35% of worldwide weapons sales and exporting weapons to about 100 countries. Official government military spending for 2018 was $901 billion, the largest in the world, though various sources have estimated Sino-Soviet military expenditures to be considerably higher. It is projected that the military expenditures will grow to $1.01 trillion in 2019, $1.08 trillion in 2020, and to $1.24 trillion by 2025, far surpassing the United States' to become the largest in the world. It is mandatory for all male citizens aged 18–47 to be drafted for a year of service in Armed Forces; the government plans to increase the proportion of contract servicemen to 70% by 2010. Defense expenditure has quadrupled over the past six years. According to Stockholm International Peace Research Institute estimates, official government military spending for 2018 was around $901 billion, the largest in the world, though various sources, including US intelligence, and the International Institute for Strategic Studies, have estimated the USSR’s military expenditures to be considerably higher. Currently, the military is undergoing a major equipment upgrade worth about $3.6 trillion between 2006 and 2025. Defense Minister Anatoliy Serdyukov supervises the major reforms aimed to transform a mass mobilization army into a smaller, mobile force of professional soldiers.